Inside a West Village Apartment That Channels 1920s Glamour

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Inside a West Village Apartment That Channels 1920s Glamour

It’s the stuff of New York real estate fairy tales. The owners of the apartment next to yours, the one with the highly covetable views you’ve been lusting after for years, come to you because they want to sell, and they’d like to give you right of first refusal.

You strike a deal, and, the next thing you know—well, the next thing after the lengthy planning process, bureaucratic board approvals, endless permitting, and months and months and months of construction dusting and punch-list punching—you’re living in the home of your dreams, with the skyline vistas to prove it. Pure fantasy? Not if you’re arts marketing entrepreneur turned interior designer Erik Gensler.

Image may contain Home Decor Lamp Chair Furniture Desk Table Architecture Building Indoors Living Room and Room

“Great design starts with how people live,” Gensler notes, paraphrasing Albert Hadley. “Every great designer, and especially the Brits, talk about comfort, and the comfort of guests.” He brought this thinking to bear on his jewel-toned living room, which centers on a 1970s Guy Lefevre for Ligne Roset lacquered-brass coffee table, from Maison Cedric, the center of which pivots to reveal a hidden bar. “The coup de théâtre for guests is when it spins open, and there’s Champagne on ice inside.” Around the edges of the room, Gensler arranged a Fortuny-upholstered Gustavian settee, a Ferrell Mittman lounge chair, an A. Rudin sofa, a 1940s Jindřich Halabala Spider table, and 18th-century Louis XVI armchairs. The artwork on the back wall is a 2018 David Mitchell painting.

Art: David Mitchell/Jim Kempner Fine Art

Shop out the look of the house here⤵

Gensler and his husband lucked into just such a situation not so long ago, and it allowed them to expand their home into the mirror-image apartment next door. Now, the couple can hardly stop staring at the lights of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings that twinkle at them nightly from their dining and living rooms on the 15th floor of a landmarked late-1920s Art Deco building in New York’s West Village.

As Gensler sees it, this “once upon a time” story couldn’t have had better timing. “I had just stepped away from my digital marketing business, and had started an interiors firm, mainly working with friends. I saw this apartment as an opportunity to put my design skills and education on view without a client,” the designer and AD PRO Directory member says. He explains that since finishing the space, his home has become something of a calling card, and a touchstone. Now, when he works with clients, “We often find ourselves referencing things here.”

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